Disability by sex by age

Important information:

Estimates for single year of age between ages 90 and 100+ are less reliable than other ages. Estimation and adjustment at these ages was based on the age range 90+ rather than five-year age bands.

Read more about this quality notice.

Summary

This dataset provides Census 2021 estimates that classify usual residents in households in England and Wales by disability, by sex, and by age. The estimates are as at Census Day, 21 March 2021.

Variable and dataset information

Area type

Census 2021 statistics are published for a number of different geographies. These can be large, for example the whole of England, or small, for example an output area (OA), the lowest level of geography for which statistics are produced.

For higher levels of geography, more detailed statistics can be produced. When a lower level of geography is used, such as output areas (which have a minimum of 100 persons), the statistics produced have less detail. This is to protect the confidentiality of people and ensure that individuals or their characteristics cannot be identified.

Lower tier local authorities

Lower tier local authorities provide a range of local services. There are 309 lower tier local authorities in England made up of 181 non-metropolitan districts, 59 unitary authorities, 36 metropolitan districts and 33 London boroughs (including City of London). In Wales there are 22 local authorities made up of 22 unitary authorities.

Coverage

Census 2021 statistics are published for the whole of England and Wales. However, you can choose to filter areas by:

  • country - for example, Wales
  • region - for example, London
  • local authority - for example, Cornwall
  • health area – for example, Clinical Commissioning Group
  • statistical area - for example, MSOA or LSOA

Disability

People who assessed their day-to-day activities as limited by long-term physical or mental health conditions or illnesses are considered disabled. This definition of a disabled person meets the harmonised standard for measuring disability and is in line with the Equality Act (2010).

Sex

This is the sex recorded by the person completing the census. The options were “Female” and “Male”.

Age (C)

A person’s age on Census Day, 21 March 2021 in England and Wales. Infants aged under 1 year are classified as 0 years of age.

Variables

Population type
All usual residents in households
Area type
Lower tier local authorities
Coverage
England and Wales
Disability
5 Categories
  • Disabled under the Equality Act: Day-to-day activities limited a lot
  • Disabled under the Equality Act: Day-to-day activities limited a little
  • Not disabled under the Equality Act: Has long-term physical or mental health condition but day-to-day activities are not limited
  • Not disabled under the Equality Act: No long-term physical or mental health conditions
  • Does not apply
Age (C)
12 Categories
  • Aged 9 years and under
  • Aged 10 to 14 years
  • Aged 15 to 24 years
  • Aged 35 to 39 years
  • Aged 40 to 44 years
  • Aged 45 to 49 years
  • Aged 65 to 74 years
  • Aged 75 to 84 years
  • Aged 85 years and over
Show all 12 categories
Sex
2 Categories
  • Female
  • Male

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Protecting personal data

Sometimes we need to make changes to data if it is possible to identify individuals. This is known as statistical disclosure control.

In Census 2021, we:

  • swapped records (targeted record swapping), for example, if a household was likely to be identified in datasets because it has unusual characteristics, we swapped the record with a similar one from a nearby small area (very unusual households could be swapped with one in a nearby local authority)
  • added small changes to some counts (cell key perturbation), for example, we might change a count of four to a three or a five – this might make small differences between tables depending on how the data are broken down when we applied perturbation

Read more in Section 5 of our article Design for Census 2021.

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